Reply to Wei: Are Rural Residence and Poverty Independent Risk Factors for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease in the United States?

obstructive pulmonary disease among nonsmokers and eversmokers.In their study, Raju and colleagues used multivariate models adjusted for age, sex, race/ethnicity, region of residence, smoking duration, community poverty, urban/rural status, census-level data on the use of solid fuels in homes and the percentage of inhabitants in occupations associated with lung disease, and individual socioeconomic factors.However, some important factors that may affect the incidence of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease were not described in detail and seemed to be ignored in the study, such as FEV 1 (2) and the body mass index (3).It is quite possible that if the authors had adjusted for these factors in their multivariate models, they would have drawn a different conclusion.